writing about handing power back to educators and families – and other thoughts

Why Doesn’t Every City Do This?

The leaders of Indianapolis Public Schools, in coordination with non-profit partners, are handing power back to their highest-performing traditional schools.

In so many cities, innovation, entrepreneurship, and empowerment are only supported when educational leaders transform failing schools.

The best district educators rarely benefit. Or if these leaders are granted autonomy, this autonomy is rarely broad in scope or lasting in time. The next superintendent comes in and everything changes.

In school districts across the country, there are great educators leading phenomenal traditional district schools.

By empowering these educators, and allowing them to create non-profit governance structures, we will be much more likely to see these schools sustain themselves and, hopefully, find new ways to improve their already impressive models.

Lastly, empowering veteran educators also broadens what this movement is about.

Those of us (myself included) who call for handing power back to educators need to be careful not to create unnecessary walls between great charter and district leaders.

There are new regulatory regimes, such as those in Indiana, that have the potential to render some of our old classifications moot.

Hopefully Indianapolis will not be the last city to hand power back to its best educators.